Nothing is easier for interested theorists than to post-or ante-date the structure of a building. They have nothing to fear from the testimony of writers, and, with very few exceptions, it is difficult to assign a precise date to the construction of great churches and cathedrals or to point with certainty to their architects. The obscurity of these great artists is perhaps to be accounted for by the fact that they were ecclesiastics. As such the honour of their achievements belonged not to the individual, but to the corporate body, the order of which they were members, and members moreover who had, in most cases, taken the vow of humility.
Modern science, architectural and archæological, has failed to throw much positive light on this subject. It contents itself for the most part with ingenious hypotheses and learned deductions which leave us still in doubt as to precise dates. But we shall at least find some sort of foothold in a careful architectural survey of buildings themselves. This should be, of course, supplemented by study of historic records, and such a study will convince us that art in the Middle Ages, as in all epochs, obeyed the immutable laws of filiation and transformation. We shall follow the artist step by step, observing his research, his hesitation, his errors, and even his corrections.
These are trustworthy documents in which to study the origin of a building and to note its successive transformations, which latter were far more frequent than total reconstructions. For it was not until the beginning of the thirteenth century that great cathedral churches in any considerable numbers were conceived and continuously executed.[9]
[9] It is possible, if not easy, to trace the architectural development of the Middle Ages in a good many cathedrals and churches of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. We have, however, confined ourselves, for the purposes of our present synthesis, to the churches and cathedrals of the royal domain, and more especially of the Ile-de-France, not only because they served as models for the architects of their day, but because they illustrate in a remarkable degree the various transitions we desire to study.
34. CATHEDRAL OF LAON. MAIN FAÇADE
The great abbey churches founded towards the close of the twelfth century in the royal domain, but continued and finished in the early years of the thirteenth, still preserved a more ancient tradition.
Laon, which is derived from Noyon and from the south transept of Soissons, consists of a nave with transepts, and of two-storied side aisles vaulted upon intersecting arches, above which, as at Soissons, rise flying buttresses, which meet the thrust of the main vault.